The Spaniard badly damaged his car on the second corner of the first lap after driving into the back of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel before the front wing detached itself and the 31-year-old was sent flying into a gravel trap and out of the race.

However, Alonso is adamant that staying out on the track was the right thing to do at the time.

"Once you've seen the result, in hindsight, it's easy to say it would've been better to come in for a pit-stop," Alonso said during a Twitter Q&A on Ferrari's website. "But it's a decision that has to be made in a matter of seconds, during which we thought that I could hold on for another lap to make the most of the pit-stop and also switch to dry tyres.

"In any case, the race simulations state that if I would have stopped to change the nose, I would have finished ninth or tenth, so we didn't lose anything.

"The problem wasn't not coming in; the damage was done in the collision and it's something that we will try to avoid in the future."

The next race in the Formula 1 calendar is the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday.